ISLAMABAD: When archaeologists first uncovered the 5,000-year-old ruins of Mohenjodaro, they made one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century: the world’s only surviving Bronze Age metropolis.
That was in colonial India in 1924.
Today, the most important site of the Indus civilisation lies in Pakistan.
Now the once lost city is in danger of disappearing again as its clay wall houses, grid system roads, great granaries, baths and drainage systems crumble to dust, a victim of government neglect, public indifference and tourists’ fears of terrorism.
Archaeologists have told The Monday Telegraph that the world’s oldest planned urban landscape is being corroded by salt and could disappear within 20 years without an urgent rescue plan.
Last week, international experts and Pakistani officials met in Karachi to draw up a plan to save the site, stabilise its funding and promote awareness of a wonder of the ancient world.
They now plan to undertake an intensive conservation programme, a survey to establish how much of the ancient city is still underground and a plan to rebury those sections of the recovered ruins most under threat.
Mohenjodaro was a major centre of the pre-Hindu Indus civilisation, which dates back to 3000 BC. Its estimated 40,000 inhabitants were contemporaries of Bronze Age civilisations in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Yellow River settlements of China.
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